Author: Jeremy Ryan

Two members of the United States House Financial Services Committee have call out Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler “regarding the timing of the charges filed against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried” based on his scheduled appearance at a hearing.In a Feb. 10 notice, committee chair Patrick McHenry and Representative Bill Huizenga, who chairs the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said the timing of Bankman-Fried’s charges and arrest in the Bahamas raised “serious questions about the SEC’s process and cooperation with the Department of Justice.” The two lawmakers called on Gensler to provide records and communications from the SEC’s Division of…

United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler issued a warning to crypto companies to “come in and follow the law” after the agency announced a settlement with crypto exchange Kraken.Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Feb. 10, Gensler said crypto exchanges should register with the SEC in order to be compliant with regulations in the U.S., claiming that many within the industry were “choosing” not to do so. According to the SEC chair, the business models of many crypto projects were “rife with conflict,” claiming they needed to “disentangle” bundled products. “If this field has any chance of…

Paris’s leading contemporary art museum, the Centre Pompidou announced on Feb. 10 an upcoming permanent exhibition targeting the intersection between art and the blockchain represented by nonfungible tokens (NFTs). According to an announcement on Feb. 10, the Centre will feature NFTs from over 16 digital artists around the world, including popular collectables such as CryptoPunk #110 and Autoglyph #25, both donated to the Centre Pompidou.Le Centre Pompidou fait l’acquisition d’un ensemble d’œuvres traitant des relations entre blockchain et création artistique, dont ses premiers NFT ! Ce sont 18 projets de 13 artistes français et internationaux qui entrent en collection.Plus d’infos https://t.co/PXL4O2E9vh…

Project Red, who recently opened up their public alpha, now announce free to play weekends. Open to everyone on every other weekend, Project Red joins the growing group of high-quality FPS games available in the web3 space. Every other weekend (starting with the game open to all this weekend, Feb 10th-12th), the Project Red alpha will be free to play. Anyone can download the game and join in on the playtests for this new FPS with a Mafia theme. Though a larger world is planned, this current alpha is just for the Blood Arena, an FPS contest set within the…

The Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) recently provided the much-awaited guidelines for virtual asset service providers (VASPs) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, which included a ban on privacy coins.On Feb. 7, VARA released several rulebooks for VASPs including the “Virtual Assets and Related Activities Regulations 2023” in which VARA mentioned a prohibition on privacy coins. In the document, VARA wrote: “The issuance of Anonymity-Enhanced Cryptocurrencies and all VA Activity[ies] related to them are prohibited in the Emirate.”Cointelegraph reached out to several players within Dubai and a privacy protocol project to find out how market participants feel about the updated guidance on…

The Bullieverse ecosystem continues to grow. And as a reward, and a way to distinguish those who have been supporting the project, Bullieverse released the first of their soulbound badges, known as BLISS tokens. BLISS, or Bullieverse Soulbound Badges, are soulbound (account bound) rewards as an ongoing, community recognition system. These badges track each owners participation in various activities across the Bullieverse. This first badge is for those who participated in Beary’s Bootcamp. This was a special staking event for anyone who hibernated their BarBearian NFTs earlier this year. In addition to the Badge, the Bootcamp event also provided hibernating…

Amid Coinbase cryptocurrency exchange standing up for crypto staking and economic freedom, the online community has also urged the company to support XRP (XRP).On Feb. 9, Coinbase’s chief legal officer Paul Grewal claimed that Coinbase’s staking program is not affected by rival exchange Kraken shutting down its staking services. The executive argued that Kraken’s staking platform was “essentially offering a yield product,” while Coinbase’s staking services are “fundamentally different and are not securities.”Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong also took to Twitter on Thursday to declare that the exchange will continue to oppose the government when it comes to protecting services like…

NFT Music and Streaming On Web2 streaming platforms like Spotify or Apple Music, musicians typically earn less than $0.01 per session; however, Web3 music platforms like Audius, Sound.xyz, and Catalog enable musicians to monetize their work directly. They can make audio content into NFTs, better connect and interact with their followers, and increase exposure — all without middlemen. Music NFT platforms have yet to gain mainstream attention, with total weekly transaction volumes consistently below 100 ETH for the past 6 months. Furthermore, the total number of unique users of these platforms is 11,000, which is less than 1% of the…

NFT Non-fungible token (NFT) sales rose 18.43% this week, totaling $272.68 million. However, the number of NFT buyers declined by 60.31% to approximately 195,716. Ethereum NFT sales continue to lead the market, accounting for $233.85 million of the total sales, a 25.42% increase from the previous week. Top NFT Collection of the Week: Otherdeed Leads with $18.26 Million in Sales NFT sales rose 18.43% this week, with $272.68 million in sales recorded across more than 20 blockchain projects that issue NFTs. Ethereum led the market, accounting for 85.76% of the total sales with $233.85 million. ETH-based NFT sales also increased…

NFT The artistic shaping of Twitter’s certified meme has caused a wave of Pepe’s frog creation Checks – Pepe Edition was officially launched by well-known NFT collector Vincent Van Dough (vvd.eth) on February 5, inspired by the NFT work Checks – VV Edition created with the Twitter blue V certification logo. As early as 2009, Twitter launched the Blue V certification program and provided it to influential or well-known individuals or organizations free of charge. This certification mark has therefore become a symbol of real identity certification. However, at the end of last year, Musk announced that Twitter launched an…